Puppies

Time for some more Japanese dogs this week :D Aren't they cute?

Maruyama Ōkyo, born Maruyama Masataka, was a Japanese artist active in the late 18th century. He moved to Kyoto, where he studied artworks from Chinese, Japanese, and Western sources. A personal style of Western naturalism mixed with Eastern decorative design emerged, and Ōkyo founded the Maruyama school of painting. Although many of his fellow artists criticized his work as too slavishly devoted to natural representation, it proved a success with laypeople.

Ōkyo's painting style merged a tranquil version of Western naturalism with the Eastern decorative painting. His works show a Western understanding of highlight and shadow. His realism differed from previous Japanese schools in its devotion to nature as the ultimate source with no regard for sentiment. 

As we can see today, the artist was very good at drawing young animals playing. He did not think of young animals as merely a miniature version of the adult, but as motifs with unique characteristics. His puppy pictures seem to have been popular at the time, and there are still many of his puppy works. 

P.S. Here's some more cuteness overload—this time with book illustrations of animals by artist Beatrix Potter.